Sausages and beer might not sound much like a Tbilisi affair, but this most Bavarian of combinations is what has been served up steadily for more than five decades in one of the city’s oldest watering holes.
Nodar Vardiashvili and his shop have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the tumultuous decade of civil war and economic devastation that followed. Through the roiling changes that transformed the wider region and the skyline of Tbilisi as better economic years returned, little changed in the metal-clad, bunker-like establishment in the neighborhood of Nazaladevi that has been slinging sausages and pouring beer (and sweet fizzy lemonades) since 1964.
Nodar himself was first hired to help the original owner in 1970 when he was 22 years old. Eventually, after decades of dedicated service, he and a fellow employee inherited the business in the early 2000s.
“It was always sausages, beer, and lemonade for those who don’t drink alcohol,” says Nodar, a reticent, camera-shy man, of the menu that has been served up mostly unchanged for the last six decades (Coca-Cola is a very recent addition). But it’s the sausages – whose secret recipe has remained unchanged since the place opened – that have kept the clientele coming back, he adds.
We were tipped off to the place by a friend who lived in the area, with a disclaimer that pub was a magnet for local boozers and that its iconic status might have more to do with nostalgia for a bygone epoch than the taste of its “communist era” sausages.
Nazaladevi is a working-class neighborhood that most downtown Tbilisi residents shy away from, unless hunting for affordable furniture and decor. The latter is thanks to a sprawling warehouse called Saba, where every long-term resident seems to find themselves sooner or later when doing anything related to home improvement.
It is certainly not a neighborhood that typically draws visitors for leisure, and few know of its history as the seat of the first armed rebellion led by revolutionary workers against the then-imperial Russian government in 1905. Although the uprising was brutally squashed, the area remained a hotbed for revolutionary activity right up until the time Georgia joined the Soviet Bloc. The district became known as a tough working-class neighborhood, a reputation it retains to this day.
That’s partly why Nodar’s place remained a local secret until the age of social media. Known as the “dzevli droa” or “old-time” place to locals, a well-meaning visitor put it on Google Maps as “Old Time Pub” about seven years ago, when the first five-star reviews of the place started popping up. Of late, the place has been flooded with reviews by Russian customers – who poured in by the tens of thousands after the Ukraine invasion, either as conscious objectors or fleeing sanctions – drawn by its Soviet connection.
Dwarfed by newer buildings that have popped up around it, Old Time Pub is still housed in its original metal-sheet-encased low building, recently given a fresh lick of dark-green paint. The high clerestory windows – which let in just enough light and free customers from prying eyes – add to the air of a Soviet bunker stuck in time. Neatly cut sheets of paper stuffed into old drinking glasses serve as napkins, and the Formica-lined walls and countertop tables still bear whiffs of the proletarian austerity that defined the era.
Nodar, who still fastidiously dons his white lab coat once mandatory for all workers in the food industry, still relies on a USSR-made sausage boiler and grocery scale that could easily sell on Etsy listings of Soviet vintage goods. He calculates change and keeps account of the day’s earnings on two old wooden Abacus frames hanging on the wall beside the service-cum-cash desk.
Apart from his tools of the trade, Nodar, who is now 75, has also maintained Soviet-style secrecy about the recipe of his sausages, only divulging that they are not made on site but at a local food processing plant – the location also a secret, he adds, before politely asking us to move on with our order and leave the counter for incoming customers.
We obliged and retreated to one of the six wall-mounted standing tables to try our portion of sausages. They’re served with slices of dark rye bread and a plate of mustard, along with pint-sized mugs of Kazbegi beer fresh off the tap.
The sausages themselves don’t look much different from standard hot dogs, made from an emulsified mix of beef and pork. But as we bit into the taut skin, we started to comprehend the hype. These were decidedly fresh sausages, deliciously addictive when dipped in the eye-watering mustard and flushed down with crisp beer. Somehow, this simple-yet-effective combination just felt right in the Soviet time capsule we were in.
Our appetites whetted and tongues loosened, we attacked the sausages and gossiped about life and the steady stream of other customers – mostly men, many with a bleary countenance that noticeably perked up once they downed their order.
It was just a little past noon, and the place was already buzzing. We soon found ourselves heading back to the counter for another round, only to be informed that our previous order had been paid for by a customer who was on his way out. He brushed off our thanks with a grin and thanked us in return for visiting the place. “What would we do without Nodar?” he mused aloud, before ducking out of the door.
The kind gesture might have to do with the fact that we were conspicuously two women in a man cave of sorts. We did eventually see kids come in to leave with sausages in plastic bags, and an elderly lady who accompanied her husband and delicately sipped her lemonade with dainty bites of sausages while he chugged his beer and wolfed his plate down.
As Nodar fished out sausages and poured us our next round, we questioned him about his working hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. – a bit odd for a pub – to which he candidly replied that it’s the hours hungover folks need his service the most.
It then dawned on us what the parting words of the man who paid for our meal meant. It’s partly thanks to the hungover faithful that Nodar and his sausages have withstood all this while. And as long as his customers remain loyal, the Old Time Pub can possibly endure looming changes ahead – like the construction notice next door that advertises a soon-to-be built 12-story building, its fanciful architectural rendering showing no signs of Nodar’s shop.
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